Ivory and Ebony
by microw-ve
Summary: A collection of oneshots; one for each possible HostHaru relationship, revolving around different types of music. Something for everyone!
1. Swing

**Hey! This is just a collection of oneshots revo****lving around Haruhi's possible romantic relationships with each host (not at the same time). Enjoy!**

**N/B: The slow jazz song mentioned in here is 'Alone' by Christopher Norton (listen to it here: /watch?v=NBKFkEDrNyo)****. This piece and this video is not, in any way, my work!**

* * *

Something was strangely warm about the hallway of the Third Floor, Building C, at Ouran Academy. It reminded the brown-haired girl wandering the hallway of amber, and vanilla, and bronze pocket watches. As she neared the familiar room she had grown to love, a quiet tinkling sound grew steadily louder, until she could walk to the rhythm. She felt her lips curve upwards unconsciously, instinctively at the sound. Deciding to investigate it, the tap-tap of her stiff black school shoes quickened, and her head peered around every possible corner, and…it was coming from the Third Music Room?

"Excu– Tamaki-senpai? What are you doing here, so late?" she asked, startled to find someone she knew behind the door.

"Haru…hi…" the blonde boy mumbled in reply. His face was streaked magenta with embarrassment. He'd been caught out.

"I heard you playing."

"R-really?"

"Yeah. It was really great," she said through a smile.

"A-ah…Thank you." His blush deepened.

"I should get going, it's getting late," she concluded, almost as if she was speaking to herself.

"N-no! Wait! Uh, let me play something for you."

Now, she blushed instead. "O-okay."

His fingers moved swiftly to rest upon the keys. His eyes were closed, oddly, tranquil and motionless.

And then, the music started. She smiled to herself as the melody, like a spring breeze in winter, flowed through her. She had never appreciated music fully enough; she had always thought it to be mere tonal patterns that other people seemed so much to immerse themselves in. It was as if the beatings of her heart had synchronised with the beat. She didn't even like jazz, yet here she was, listening to his hands shape a slow, swinging song, and she had never enjoyed herself more.

When the last note had slipped away into silence, she opened her mouth to speak.

"It was beautiful."

"A-as are you." His golden locks shrouded his face as he turned away, smitten.

And she smiled for something she never knew she felt.


	2. Sway

Kyouya was used to stress. He wasn't the type to take a break from his deskwork and plug into some peaceful classical music to de-stress.

But it was Haruhi.

Haruhi who'd given him a CD of Bach's six French Suites, along with a hasty peck on the cheek and a "Happy birthday, Kyouya," before she swept herself out of the front door, coattail dancing behind her as she strode to catch the bus to university. It was hours since then.

And well, it was Haruhi.

And he'd finished his university homework.

And his company paperwork.

And…yeah.

He picked up the CD, gingerly, and examined it under the light of his lamp. A portrait of Bach stared back at him, looking very self-content and comfortable. It annoyed Kyouya that he was so…complacent-looking.

Pushing the CD into his computer's CD drive, he began to wonder why Haruhi chose such a _universally_ appreciated item for his birthday present. Haruhi should have known him well enough to get him something more personal, really. Like…like…what _did_ he want? He rarely showed any partiality towards anything. Even in front of his girlfriend.

He shifted his cursor until it sat squarely on top of the 'Play' button on his monitor, but hesitated when he heard the front door click open.

"Kyouya?" a warm voice called questioningly.

"In here," he replied, glancing away from the bright screen.

The clatter of kitten-heels on the timber floorboards was heard, before a head popped into view in the doorway. It was Haruhi, and she looked worn, but refined and graceful. Her hair had grown into soft, lithe waves that fell, although still short, across her face like a stage curtain shrouding an exquisite set. She had developed a comely figure which was very easy to shop for (he found this very important); and the shopping part wasn't hard either.

"Listening to that CD?" she asked softly, leaning over Kyouya's shoulder and kissing him gently on his ear.

"I was just going to," he replied, twisting around to face her.

"Well, then, press play."

He clicked the bright blue icon as soon as she had said so, and on came a graceful, elegant minuet which curled attractively through the room and around the two people inside. Standing, he placed a gentle hand on Haruhi's waist and whispered in her ear.

"Shall we dance?"

"Hmm…Kyouya…" she murmured, placing her head gently on his muscular shoulder as they swayed slightly to the relaxed melody. And they waltzed long after the delicate notes had diffused into nothingness, and fell quietly and smoothly from their dance into sleep.

* * *

**Okay, for all the musical geniuses out there, I realise that a minuet is an interpolation and is therefore placed between the Sarabande (3) and the Gigue (4), but just for the sake of this story, the Minuet comes first.**

**Oh, and they didn't die. They just...got really tired from dancing.**

**Cheers!**

**Microwave**


	3. Croon

**Yay! KaoHaru :D Enjoy.**

Kaoru sat, entranced, while music blasted into his ears via his IPod ear-buds. His IPod was face-down, sitting squarely on his black jeans so that no-one, not anybody, could see the very embarrassing song he was listening to.

Except he forgot that Haruhi was sitting next to him in a next-generation café, half-reading a book, half-trying to drink a scalding hot chai latte (it just so happened that Kaoru and Haruhi both had an off day from university, and they'd decided to get together to celebrate a rare occasion). And he forgot that music turned up too loud in one's earphones usually leaked into the air around him. And he forgot that she had developed very good hearing, a sort of adaptation to pick up those under-the-breath comments fired between Hikaru and Tamaki whensoever they met, even though the battle was well over and done with, seeing as someone had already won.

Haruhi leaned over to him gently, placing her ear near his ear-bud. Something about that melody buzzing in the air felt familiar. She heard snatches, lyrics like _'…you know exactly what you do…'_ and _'…through these crazy times…'_, and it clicked with the few modern songs she knew.

"Kaoru, why are you listening to Michael Bublé?" she asked the sandy-haired teen next to her. She peered around his right ear-bud, into his molten eyes.

Kaoru blushed, and pulled the IPod out of sight – or tried to. Haruhi's nimble fingers snagged it and pulled it back into plain view, with the screen facing _upwards_.

"Why are you listening to Michael Bublé?" she repeated, grinning subtly, mischievously (something she had never done before she met the twins). She motioned at the music player with her left hand.

"I-I'm not," he said, desperately trying to change the song discreetly, before realising he had locked the controls with that annoying little switch in the top left corner.

"You are," Haruhi pressed, pulling the IPod closer to her face to look at the screen. "You're listening to 'Everything', by Michael Bublé," she said, squinting at the lines of shifting text on the little screen.

"S-so?"

"So…isn't that a girlish song?"

"W-well…"

"Come on, we both know you'd normally be listening to punk rock or jazz classical." Haruhi took a short sip of her frothy latte.

"Haruhi, you see, er, I was…"

"Hmm?"

"You…I was listening to it…err…because, you know, it kinda…describes how I feel about you…?" Kaoru trailed off, shifting his eyes uncomfortably.

"…It…does?"

"Y-yeah."

"W-what's it about?"

"Well…there's this guy, and he really loves this girl, and he thinks the world of her, and she's on his mind just about every minute of every day…and that's what I feel about you."

Haruhi stared at him for a second, before her eyes softened. A smile blossomed from the corners of her mouth, and she picked up an ear-bud.

"Can I listen to it?"

* * *

To those who love long works, I do apologise; you may have to wait a while to read a longer piece. Drop a review if you have time to waste and fingers to type!

Cheers,

Microwave


	4. Trill

Half an hour before the Host Club flung their rose pink doors open to the screaming public, the club members were usually doing exactly the same thing, almost every day.

Haruhi would be sitting on an upholstered chair, a few steps away from the west wall, hunched over what was presumably a homework book or novel. Kaoru would be crouching over a cardboard box marked 'FRAGILE' in the dressing room, tugging at wild, exotic and expensive materials they'd purchased for the upcoming week's cosplay and scrawling designs on a scrap guest list. Hikaru would be crouched just a metre away, muttering things like, "No, go _right,_ you stupid cow!" at a blue Nintendo DS, while pausing occasionally to scrawl something on Kaoru's scrap paper, like '_Add a belt,_' or '_No pleats!'. _Tamaki would be doing one of two things: daydreaming about Haruhi in girlish clothing, or daydreaming about Haruhi (the difference was hard to spot; you had to look at where his hands were on his lap). Kyouya would be sitting at his mahogany desk, clacking away at the keys of his Pineapple laptop as his glasses slid slowly down the bridge of his nose, sometimes with his shoes off (shhh, don't tell anyone). Honey would be doing the norm, eating cake and drinking tea with four sugars, and his strapping cousin Mori would be sitting there with him, not exactly eating cake or drinking tea, but staring quietly at the west wall with slightly lidded eyes.

Today, though, Mori had brought in a few variegated pot plants for decoration, in all their royal-purple-leaf-edges-and-full-bloom-too glory, and placed them in the corners of the room. He'd also brought in an old-fashioned tin watering can (which was odd for a family of his unbelievably high wealth) and did what you do with a watering can; he watered the pot plants. While he did this, though, a strange and somewhat ethereal sound filled the room. A clear, high-pitched sound, like the song of a bird or the tune of the wind, coming from the tall raven-haired teen. When Haruhi looked up, she saw his lips shaped into a small circle, his cheeks inflating slightly, then hollowing as he whistled a melody that sounded like it had been plucked from a cherry tree.

"Senpai, are you whistling?" Haruhi asked him, book in hand as she strolled up to him. She hadn't really been reading; the sound of his music had pulled her attention away gently, almost like hypnosis.

"Mm," Mori replied, smiling slightly. He spilt a puddle of water onto the mirror-shiny marble floor in a sudden shock of unexpected nerves.

"What's the song?" she inquired, having never heard it before.

"Just off the top of my head."

"And, how do you whistle? I've never been able to, even though I've tried many times." She finished with an award-winning smile.

"Copy me."

Mori positioned his mouth like a cone, with his lips in a tiny circle, the size of the end of a pencil. It was a comical position, yes, but when he started whistling, you didn't even have to look. He paused for breath, and–

"How do you vary the pitch?" she asked softly, staring wonderingly up at him. His eyes widened marginally, startled at her intense stare.

"Move your tongue in and out." He demonstrated by whistling up and down his range of notes.

Haruhi's brows knitted tightly together for a moment, before she tried to replicate the sound of his crystalline tune.

…silence prevailed.

"Don't worry if you don't get it," Mori reassured her. "There's something else you can do with that position." And with that, he lifted her up as if she were a tiny child, and placed a small peck on her cheek; she flushed, and looked away for a moment.

"Thanks. You're a great teacher."

Even though she was turned away, Mori saw her cheekbones lift in a shy smile.

Hopefully he'd taught her more than just that.

* * *

**Hello all! I didn't really like the way this turned out; I thought it was a bit weak. I'm not really used to writing this pairing yet, so bear with me, although you probably won't see much MoriHaru from me.**

**Hope you enjoyed it, and toss some reviews this way!**

**Cheers,**

**Microwave**


	5. Strut

Hello all! This has been holed up in my fanfiction folder because I've been pretty busy, so here it is!

* * *

"_I'm a Barbie Girl, in my Barbie World…"_

As Barbie's upbeat theme song blasted from his iPhone dock speakers, Hikaru pulled from his neck a delicate, crinkled silk scarf and plopped onto the bed. He was never going to get this done in two days – the day one week before his mother's season showcase. What was he going to wear? Wriggling his arms through the sleeves of a frayed, chocolate brown batwing top – one of his mother's innovative autumn designs – he sat and thought for a moment.

High waisted skirts? No, too last season.

Belted with slim-fit pants? No, too ordinary. He sauntered up and down the length of his room, trying to get a feel for girl's clothes, and just like that it came to him.

He reached into the pile of prototypes sprawled messily over his and Kaoru's bed. Kaoru was out for the day with their mother shopping; she had claimed that she was 'so deprived of new season clothes, I think I'll collapse!', and dragged Kaoru with her as a second opinion. Hikaru, on the other hand, was stuck at home as a punishment for accidentally spilling some Earl Grey tea on her design archives folder, with only the shining hope of Haruhi visiting in the afternoon as motivation to keep awake, let alone finish the task at hand.

Fishing out a pair of black silk shorts and a ruffled taffeta brooch, he started to lay things out on an unoccupied part of the bed.

_Put the brooch here on the chest, _his head told him, and his hands disagreed. They opened up the pin and tried to pin it to the pants, but his head fought, and his hands pulled, and–

"Ow!" he cried. The pin had gone into his forearm with vicious force, and a single bead of blood was cart-wheeling drunkenly down his hand like a hobo down an alleyway.

_I control things around here, _his head yelled. Hikaru sighed. He was so uncoordinated.

But back to what he was wearing.

"Maybe…" he murmured to himself, "maybe if I wear makeup…"

And so he ransacked his mother's cosmetics drawer, looking for crimson lipstick, peachy blush, subtle, shimmery green eye-shadow – cream-to-powder type, of course – and a tiny bottle of liquid eyeliner.

He sat silently in front of his mother's vanity, clad in a chocolate-brown batwing top, silk shorts adorned with a black taffeta flower, and chunky, four-inch sling-back heels, dexterously applying product after product. After a tedious hour, he looked like a perfectly painted, plastic mannequin who should have been standing, frozen, in a glass box on the Strand.

"_You're my doll, rock 'n' roll…"_

He paused. The echo of footsteps hung faintly in the air, but the sound ceased before he could be sure. Was that Haruhi? It was only four o'clock.

He quickly started to undress, pulling off all the feminine clothing on his body – but the click of a shutting door froze him in his tracks.

"Hikaru? I'm here! Your car's not in the driveway – is your mum out? And where's Kaoru?"

The smack of flat, sensible shoes met his ears with louder force than it actually was.

"Hikaru?"

"In a second."

"'Kay."

He roughly pulled on a pair of jeans, forgetting to zip up the fly before he rushed outside.

"H-Haruhi?"

She stared at him for a moment, before pointing at his face.

"Why are you wearing makeup?"

"Oh, this? It, uh…"

"Yes?" Her eyebrows started to knit themselves.

"Um…"

"And why is the song _Barbie Girl_ blasting from your room?

"Er, well…"

"And what are you doing with that _bra!?_" she cried, pointing to the pale purple thing half-wrapped around his chest like a lacy snake slung from his shoulder.

"Heh…you see…"

"_And why are you wearing hoop earrings the size of Saturn's rings?!?!_"

"Haruhi…"

"Hikaru, are you gay?" Her eyes turned steely.

"N-no, Haruhi!!!"

"It's okay if you are; I don't mind that. But if you're gay, why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Ha-Haruhi, I'm not!"

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. You can tell me, you know."

"B-but there's nothing to tell!"

"Well, except for why you're cross-dressing and listening to that hideous song."

"Fine. You really want to know?

"Yes."

"I was designing my mother's runway show. It's kinda like a punishment for spilling Earl Grey tea all over her design archives folder."

"And the makeup?"

"I decided I needed to see through the eyes of a girl, and what better way to do that than through the layers and layers of mascara and eye-shadow?

"I don't believe you."

"Please, Haruhi, just…trust me." Hikaru's eyes grew soft. Was she really going to leave him?

"…Go on."

"And the earrings were part of the 'choreo'. And _Barbie_ was kinda for the mood as well."

"Really, Hikaru?" Haruhi asked sceptically.

"Really! I'll even show you my notes!"

He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the bedroom, seating her on the bed.

He reached into a pile of books, pulling out a scrap of paper covered in scribbles and doodles.

"…The song wasn't that hideous, was it?" he asked as she deeply perused a kindergarten-style stick drawing of Hikaru and Haruhi sharing an ice-cream, complete with crayon-inspired handwriting. Underneath was an extensive paragraph of curling, ornate cursive writing on the placement of clothes on the models, complete with freehand curlicues and sophisticated sketches. Did this really come from the same hand?

"Hikaru, next time you want to cross-dress, tell me first. Please." Haruhi handed Hikaru back the notebook, planting a quick kiss on his cheek.

"Alright." As Haruhi drew away, he leaned in closer, kissing her softly on her smooth lips. She smiled.

"Oh yes, and," Haruhi said, grinning now, "it was that hideous."

* * *

"I'm a Barbie Girl, in my Barbie Wo-o-orld," Hikaru sang happily on the way to class. Haruhi, who was holding his hand, jerked away.

"I thought you said you weren't gay!"

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed it! Truth is, I was actually stuck for songs for Hikaru until one of my friends from Vat Of Crack (/u/1741681/Vat_of_Crack) suggested Barbie Girl (we go to the same school, and I write a bit for them too. She's obsessed with Tic Tacs, and just a tad crazy) and I ran with it. Have fun!**

**Cheers,**

**Microwave**


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